


Stiles and the Medieval Manuscript

by medrengirl



Series: Inspired by Historical News Stories [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Knots are not a thing, M/M, Marginalia - Freeform, Medieval Manuscripts, bestiary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3767662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medrengirl/pseuds/medrengirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about books and marginalia. Or, Stiles discovers that medieval manuscript illustrations can be misleading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stiles and the Medieval Manuscript

Derek was sitting on the bed, reading a mass market paperback, with a story about as mass market as the paper it was printed on. Mildly entertaining sci-fi, nothing special. It was Stiles’ current non-research reading, and Derek had snagged it from the bookshelf built into the headboard of Stiles’ bed. Across the room, his boyfriend was working on his electronic bestiary, ancient books spread across his desk as he transcribed material, muttering under his breath. Derek heard the slide of fingers across paper, the turn of the page, and then the sound of Stiles’ heart as it suddenly sped up.

“What the hell? No. No.”

“Find something?” Derek didn’t even look up from his own book.

Suddenly, Stiles was out of his chair and across the room. “What,” Stiles asked, slapping a book down over Derek’s paperback, “is this.” It wasn’t even a question, from the tone.

“Excuse me?” Stiles’ hand was still over half the page, and Derek couldn’t see what he was talking about.

“This!” Stiles said as he thumped his finger onto the page.

“Stiles,” Derek sighed, “tell me what I’m supposed to be seeing and explaining.”

“Did you lie to me?”

“What?”

“This… this picture. It’s a knot. You SWORE you didn’t have a knot!” Stiles didn’t quite flail his arms, but he was clearly intentionally trying to restrain his range of motion.

Derek looked up at Stiles. “I said I didn’t have a knot because werewolves don’t have knots.”

“This suggests otherwise.”

“Let me see that,” Derek said, pulling the book closer.

Derek looked at the book. It was clearly very old—parchment, not paper, from the smell and feel. Likely medieval. The cover under his fingers was leather, but smelled of old wood underneath. Oak, perhaps. The words were in a handwriting (and language, he suspected) that he could not read. The margins were filled with a colorful border—red and blue flowers, mixed with green leaves, all with beautiful white and black detailing. It took Derek a moment to find the image buried among the plethora of details. But Stiles was definitely correct about the picture. Drawn in exquisite, explicit detail was a male figure, a werewolf in his beta form, complete with pointy teeth, claws, and golden eyes. But naked. With a knot at the base of his very erect penis. 

“What. The. Hell.” Derek’s voice was flat.

“That’s what I said!”

“Stiles, I swear, I do not have a knot. I do not know why this picture does.”

“Fuck. You’re 200 percent sure? Because we’ve been trusting this thing for information on all sorts of things that could kill us, but if it can’t even get basic werewolf biology straight, I don’t know if we can rely on it for the bestiary! What if it tells us that the way to kill a, a, a griffin is by stabbing it through the heart, but it tells us the heart is in the front of the chest cavity when it’s really further back? I mean, that could get one of you guys killed!”

“Griffins are real?” Derek asked, interrupting before Stiles could really get going.

“No, I was speaking entirely in hypotheticals, but my point stands!”

“What does the text say? I can’t read this.”

Stiles pulled the book back to him. “ _Excernuntur ab ranis_... It’s about… frogs? Uh, basically this one species of frog can excrete a slime that disrupts… _vacca maledicere_ … uh, hexes cast on cows, if you can get the cow to consume the slime.”

Derek raised an eyebrow.

Stiles huffed. “I have no idea. What the hell does this have to do with werewolves? Why is there a werewolf with a KNOT on this page?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re the werewolf who swears he doesn’t have a knot!”

Derek tugged on Stiles’ hand until he sat down next to Derek on the bed, where Derek could lean over and kiss his neck. “I swear. I do not have a knot.”

“Did you ever get wolfy sex ed? What if you just missed out on that part of your education?”

“Stiles.” Derek nuzzled closer, trying his damnedest to be distracting.

“I’m calling Lydia.” Suddenly, Stiles was up off the bed, almost startling Derek.

“Why, exactly?”

“Because she was the one who bought this book for us, and she wants the info included in the bestiary, and if it’s giving us bad info, she needs to know.”

“You think the bit about frog slime was bad info?”

“No, I’m saying I don’t _know_ if it’s bad information because it’s showing me a picture of a werewolf with a knot! And you say that werewolves don’t have knots. So either you’re wrong, or the book is wrong!” Stiles was already at his computer, pulling up Skype to ring Lydia.

Derek groaned. “You’re not seriously going to trust Lydia over me if she says that werewolves have knots, are you?”

“No, asshole,” Stiles said. “I’m going to ask her if we should trust the rest of the book.”

“Small mercies,” Derek muttered.

“Jerk.”

“Idjit.”

Skype was ringing Lydia as Stiles turned his head to Derek, a grin on his face. “Ass-butt.”

Lydia was picking up, so Derek didn’t bother replying. He just smiled at the fact that Stiles’ TV watching was clearly rubbing off on him and picked up his own book and went back to where he had been reading.

“Lydia! Where exactly did you find this monstrous piece of bestiary trash, and why did you think it is trustworthy?” Stiles waved the book under discussion at the camera, clearly moving too fast for Lydia to focus on the details.

“That monstrous piece of bestiary trash, as you call it, came from a perfectly disreputable bookstore in San Francisco. And the contents are about as respectable as the shop is not,” she said. “What’s the problem?”

“It includes information Derek says is false.”

“Such as?”

“Um.” Stiles stole a look at Derek. “Information about werewolf reproductive systems.”

Lydia glared at Stiles. “You mean you got hung up on the marginalia images, don’t you.”

“If by ‘hung up on,’ you mean paid attention to the whole book and didn’t ignore pertinent illustrations!” Stiles squawked.

Lydia sighed. “Medieval manuscripts are _known_ for hiding random illustrations in the margins that are meant to be hilarious. Seriously, did you not see the jousting rabbits and ass trumpets in that Buzzfeed article? Or in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_?”

Stiles deflated. “So I should just ignore images in the margins.”

“Yes, Stiles. Ignore the pervy images in the margins.”

“Fine. Thanks. Forgive me for going above and beyond—”

“Don’t forget, I want to collate our translations later this week—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, but first I gotta go apologize to Derek for accusing him of not knowing his own biology.” Stiles hung up before Lydia had a chance to even respond to that, turning in his swivel chair to face the bed again.

“Werewolf knots are pertinent illustrations for using frog slime to get rid of cow hexes?” Derek asked, refusing to let a smile touch his lips.

Stiles’ eyes narrowed at Derek’s expression. “You may not deserve an apology after all. In fact, I think we should forget this particular incident ever happened,” he declared, swiveling back to his desk.

Derek tilted his head in speculation, then reached back into the headboard and pulled out a pencil. He flipped forward in Stiles’ mass market paperback, just a few pages after where Stiles had dog-eared the page to mark his spot.

“If you want,” he said after he finished drawing, “I could prove to you again that I do not have a knot.”

Stiles turned to him. “Yeah?”

“Come here.” Derek didn’t bother to hide his smile this time as Stiles stumbled towards him.

 

_A half hour later._

Stiles was feeling energized after a rather, uh, rousing session with Derek, who was now drowsing, face down in a pillow. Not energized enough to go back to the pervy images in the manuscript, but definitely not ready for sleep. His current sci-fi novel was lying on the floor next to the bed, so he picked it up to see if he could get a few pages further.

It didn’t take long before he laughed, and punched Derek in the side. “Ass-butt.”

Derek didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Ass trumpet, you mean.”

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> [Jousting rabbits](http://io9.com/bizarre-and-vulgar-illustrations-from-illuminated-medie-1456202572), [ass-trumpets](https://youtu.be/McaiADeflto), [penis trees](http://www.buzzfeed.com/babymantis/20-bizarre-examples-of-medieval-marginalia-1opu), and more odd things in medieval marginalia (and Monty Python).
> 
>  
> 
> This is my first fan fic in sixteen years, and my first fiction writing of any sort in fourteen. Be kind!


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